Jo-Wilfried Tsonga played his best match in a very long time but ultimately got overmatched by Casper Ruud 7-6(6) 6-7(4) 2-6 6-7(0).
Casper Ruud and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga played a superb and spectacular match. For Tsonga, this was his final career match and he went out properly. He played as well as he can play at this point of his career and he earned the respect of both Ruud and the many people who watched. The Frenchman employed his signature combination of serve and forehand with great success.
Ruud had trouble handling both in the entire match although he did sort of play rather lacklustre to start the match. On his own serve, he mostly was dominant but on the serve of Tsonga he failed to exert much pressure. In the tiebreak, Ruud simply got outplayed by Tsonga who won it 8-6. The 2nd set was a proper battle. Tsonga had early break points but failed to convert.
Ruud had them a game later but also failed to convert. Eventually, we ended up in another tiebreak where Tsonga was up 3-1. He ran out of steam in it as Ruud was able to outplay him thanks to his physicality. He won it 7-4 and after that Ruud was able to assert himself completely. Tsonga struggled to keep up the high level and Ruud cruised to a 6-2 3rd set.
Tsonga played another great set of tennis in the final one as he was able to find his serve and forehand again. Ruud had a couple of chances but each time Tsonga was able to hold. He even broke Ruud at 5-5 for the 6-5 lead but while doing so he injured his shoulder and that was a problem. He could not play the way he wanted to and Ruud broke back. An MTO before the tiebreak did not help and Ruud finished it off with 7-0 in the tiebreak.
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